Desktop imaging solutions are being increasingly used for both personal photography and to obtain image content for low-budget printed documents in small businesses. The typical desktop imaging environment consists of a digital camera, a computer, a color display device (CRT monitor or flat panel LCD) and image editing and organization software. Image and document editing tasks are often undertaken using the available monitor or display with little regard for its color accuracy or state of calibration. Unforeseen or unsatisfactory results can be obtained if the color monitor or display is poorly calibrated. Unfortunately, such failures are not noticed until the document is viewed on a different monitor or printed, by which time considerable editing effort may have been wasted. Calibrating and characterizing the color display can remedy these problems. The cost for hardware and software for such calibration is a significant expenditure for personal use or in a small business. Furthermore, the calibration system is a poor value proposition for many persons and organizations because it has no use beyond display calibration. Color display characterization is a process of deriving the relationship between digital input RGB values driving the display and the resulting colors emanating from the display as perceived by the human visual system. The latter is typically measured using instruments such as a calorimeter or spectroradiometer. Such instruments can be expensive, and require a certain level of skill on the part of the user.
An alternative is to replace costly color measurement instrumentation with an inexpensive consumer camera to measure displayed colors. However, since most digital cameras do not produce calorimetric data by default, they must themselves first be characterized. The standard camera characterization process once again requires color measurement instrumentation, and therefore does not reduce the cost or burden to the user.
Thus, there exists a need for a relatively low-cost, multipurpose system for calibration and characterization of both color displays and digital cameras.